1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to printing apparatuses and printing methods.
2. Related Art
An ink jet printer (hereinafter, referred to as a “printer”) including a head that discharges ink through a nozzle is widely known as a printing apparatus. Recently, it has been required to printers to print an image on various kinds of media such as paper, cloth, plastic films, and so on. For example, a printer that uses ink containing thermoplastic resin particles is proposed in order to print an image on a non-absorptive medium such as a plastic film that does not absorb ink (e.g., see JP-A-2010-221670). Using ink that contains thermoplastic resin particles makes it possible to form a hard resin film on the medium after the ink is dried and to ensure rub resistance of the printed matter.
An ink droplet that has landed on an ink non-absorptive medium is likely to flow. Therefore, a printer using an ink non-absorptive medium is required to perform printing while heating the medium so as to accelerate the drying of an ink droplet that has landed on the medium and consequently suppress the flowing of the ink droplet. Meanwhile, when an ink droplet is discharged through a nozzle, a minute ink droplet is generated along with a main ink droplet in some case. If this minute ink droplet loses its velocity halfway and floats in the air as mist, there is a case in which the mist adheres to a nozzle opening surface of the head. In the case of a printer using an ink non-absorptive medium as described above, the temperature of the nozzle opening surface of the head becomes high being affected by the heat that heats the medium; accordingly, when ink mist adheres to the nozzle opening surface of the head, the ink is dried and firmly adhered to the nozzle opening surface. As a result, the ink is accumulated on the nozzle opening surface of the head, and the accumulated ink prevents ink droplets from being discharged through the nozzles.